HECLA, NEBRASKA - GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN

by Frank Harding

Entry T14 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

Gottlob store in background and their home far
upper right - school house center - lunberyard
and grain bins near R.R. track.

Hecla General Store about 1912.

Mullen, the County Seat, is the only town
in Hooker county. The only other town ever
located in the county was Hecla, named after
a volcano in Iceland, and established by the
railroad as a cattle shipping point by building
a depot and stockyards. Hecla was located 10
miles west of Mullen and 15 miles east of the
Grant County town of Whitman.

Besides the Depot, Hecla at one time had
a school house, pool hall, a general store and
a couple of houses. It never had a population
of over about 11 people, but migrant workers,
railroad crews and surveyors more than
tripled the population for brief periods of
time. The store was operated for many years
by Bill and Rebekah Gottlob. They also
operated a 4th class post office. When
travelers overflowed the three or four bed
sleeping quarters at the rear of the store, they
were bedded down in the school house or the
haymow of their barn. When the state crew
first surveyed the present hiway #2, the men
lived in tents put up near the Gottlob house.
Mrs. Gottlob also provided meals for tran-
sients, travelers and ranchers who came to
purchase supplies or ship cattle. Besides
being a major shipping point to send cattle
out of the sandhills to market, during the
1920's and 1930's, many cattle were shipped
in to be sandhill grazed then sent to market.

The Gottlob store burned in 1927 and the
depot was closed in the mid '30's. Cattle were
still shipped out of the stockyards but were
billed out through the depot at Mullen. The
school was closed and the school house was
moved to Mullen and used as a residence,
about 1952. The Burlington railroad main-
tained a section crew in Hecla until 1956. The
Gottlob home was torn down that fall. The
Depot building was used as a private dwelling
for a few years before it was torn down.